Business computer use at high 66%
WHILE the level of personal computer (PC) penetration among Malaysian households is still low, the penetration among businesses is high.
Malaysia Debt Ventures Bhd (MDV) managing director and chief executive officer Md Zubir Ansori Yahaya said that PC penetration among businesses in Malaysia, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME), was encouragingly high at 66%.
The rate was above South Korea’s 61% and Taiwan’s 58% but still below Singapore’s 82% and Hong Kong’s 70%, he said in the October issue of MDV’s publication, Wavelength.
He said SMEs in Malaysia were expected to spend about US$1.8bil this year and US$2bil in 2006 on information technology (IT) alone, compared with US$1.7bil last year.
As for PC penetration among Malaysian households, he said it was currently at 17% from a base of five million households, whereas Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia had achieved over 50% penetration.
Zubir said it was unreasonable to leave the sole responsibility to narrow the digital divide to the Government and its agencies.
He said more local conglomerates should show their social responsibility by helping the Government bridge the digital divide.
He said the local telcos had contributed through the Universal Service Provision programme with basic telecoms services and that the next stage for them could be the provision of broadband to communities.
He said the broadband penetration in Malaysia at 1% of the population currently was way behind other Asian economies.
Zubir hopes that Internet service providers that are investing in wireless broadband will consider making technology more affordable and widely available to help accelerate information and communications technology (ICT) take-ups.
“I believe the Government is fully aware that the challenge of implementing ICT initiatives is not largely attributed to issues on technology, but more on issues that are related to management and leadership,” he said.
He hopes the National Information Technology Council could play a bigger role in governing the national ICT policy and overseeing various other agencies and state authorities that have mobilised their own ICT programmes.
“Such major initiatives, I think, should be governed by a single authority to ensure effectiveness,” he added.
– Bernama